


Glister, Glimmer, Glance

by CardboardMoose



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Multi, Polygrumps, casual ableist language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1317745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CardboardMoose/pseuds/CardboardMoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something up with Arin and Suzy. It's not what Danny thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Other People's Business

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry. I had to.
> 
> Alternate title: Puella Magi Grumpy Magica

It took about six weeks for Danny to notice something was up. 

Six weeks was long enough for him to have crashed at Arin and Suzy's place a few times after long evenings that had turned into long nights of recording. They were very accommodating, letting him take the guest room instead of the couch, making him breakfast in the morning. Suzy's pancakes had to be witnessed to be believed. 

The thing was. The thing was that every single time Danny stayed over, he'd heard the front door open and shut, quietly, about an hour after they'd all turned in. Every single time. He heard voices before but not afterwards, which implied that someone was leaving the house. So it was either Arin, or Suzy, or both. And they were always back by the morning, though he'd never managed to stay up long enough to hear them return. That guest bed was really comfortable. 

It took another two weeks for Danny to decide to do something about it. He and Arin had recorded something like fifteen episodes before they called it a night as the sugar wore off, and he waved to Suzy through the doorway of the master bedroom as he walked down the corridor. She smiled at him and bade him goodnight, and he felt his heart flutter a little, like a trapped bird. He ignored it. 

He didn't even bother taking his jeans off, pulling out his phone to keep himself occupied until his straining ears picked up the low voices and soft k-chk of the door. As soon as he was sure they were gone, he took the stairs two at a time, stuffing his feet into his sneakers and sneaking out the back door as quickly and quietly as he could. 

He followed them at a safe distance for a time, using whatever stealth he'd learned from years of sneaking back from parties and out of the sight of cops. At least this time if he got caught he probably wouldn't be arrested. It'd just be really awkward. 

He still wasn't sure where they were going, though. This wasn’t the way to any bar or club Danny knew, and in any case since when had Arin and Suzy snuck out at night to go clubbing? It's not like he was their dad, they didn’t have to hide it from him. God, that was a weird thought. But here they were, in one of the grimier parts of the city, near nothing much except for factories and warehouses and maybe a rave or two. 

Arin and Suzy were walking perhaps a little more slowly than they normally would, and looking around a lot. Like, a _lot_ , scrutinising the smudged shadows outside the halos of the streetlights with a strange intensity. They weren't doing anything that someone not basically stalking them would notice, but from his admittedly creepy vantage point Danny was both confused and intrigued. 

For the next few minutes Danny tried to justify what was going on in his own head. He was following his two best friends through the streets of LA at three in the damn morning for no better reason than his own burning, foolish curiosity. Well, it wasn't just that. In truth, he was kind of worried. Arin wasn't helpless and Suzy could probably fuck someone up real bad given enough reason but wandering around backstreet LA in the middle of the night was _dangerous_. Not that he could probably do much to help if someone decided to point a gun at them, but still. Misplaced chivalry was still chivalry. Or something. 

They turned down an alley. It was a warm night, temperate by California standards, but as he watched Arin and Suzy pause halfway down the narrow passage Danny felt a chill down his spine. Suzy’s head twitched in his direction and Danny ducked quickly behind a dumpster, praying that she hasn't seen him, the pounding of his heart slowly fading at the lack of shouting from the other side of his garbage-filled barrier. 

Heart in his mouth, Danny stuck his head around the dumpster to see...something he didn't quite understand. Suzy and Arin were...dancing? Posing? They were moving in weird, stylised ways, throwing up their hands to the smog-hidden stars. That wasn't the weirdest thing. The weirdest thing was that they were _glowing_. 

A hysterical voice started to jabber in the back of Danny's mind, repeating that line from the Simpsons about "the Aurora Borealis, localised entirely within your kitchen". The light was subtle enough that no-one outside the alley was going to notice it, but there was no ignoring it - it was as if the universe had put on a lightshow just to spotlight whatever it was that they were doing. 

What they were doing, apparently, was changing clothes. Each outstretched limb was inexplicably, gracefully clothed not in sensible jeans and hoodies but instead in something...frilly. Lacy. Poofy. This was getting freakier by the second. Danny wasn't a closed-minded man, but he liked to think that he had a fairly decent grounding in reality, at least now his days of stoned Morrowind obsession were over. This wasn't on the list of things that were generally possible in real life. This was some cartoon shit. 

A particular kind of cartoon, he thought faintly, as the glow faded and Suzy and Arin's new outfits were revealed. "Outifts" was one word for them, at least. "Costumes" was another. There were...bows. And skirts. And tiaras. On both of them. Damn, Arin had nicer legs than he'd thought. And the pink really brought out his eyes. 

Speaking of bows, Arin had the shooting-things type in one hand, an arrow knocked to the string and pointing at a shadow that seemed somehow darker than the others in the alley. Suzy was carrying - giant scissors? Really? - and levelling them at the same spot. 

"We see you in there. Come out before we make you." 

All of a sudden, the shadow wasn't garbage can-shaped. It roiled and writhed, surging up the wall almost faster than the eye could see, rearing well above head-height like a vast cobra, dwarfing its prey. 

Before it could strike, Arin's readied arrow caught it in what might have been its throat, followed by a second, then a third, pinning it against the wall, helpless to avoid the blade of Suzy's scissors as they swung, severing it in two with a sound like tearing cloth. The blackness hung on the wall for a moment, frozen in time, then as suddenly as it had appeared was gone, dispersing like so much mist. 

This was insane. This was grade-A, DEFCON 1, batshit insane. Danny was staring, mouth agape, still half-convinced that this was a dream, or a hallucination, or something, anything but reality. His best friends, in cute dresses, defeating shadow monsters with oversized kitchen implements. 

He was so absorbed by the absurd spectacle in front of him that he didn't notice the wisp of shadow until it wrapped itself around his throat, and by then it was too late.

 


	2. Things Your Best Friends Didn't Tell You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not the kind of conversation that normally happens on the Grump couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for your kind words about the first chapter! I don't know how long this thing's going to run for, I know what's going to happen but how long it'll take to write and how many chapters it'll be is anyone's guess. Thank you for coming along for the ride.

When he came to, there was something soft under his head and his leg was in a puddle. Moving hurt, so he elected to forgo another attempt for the time being. Opening his eyes hurt too, but at some point he was going to have to get around to doing that, so he might as well seize the moment. The painful, confusing, uncomfortably wet-legged moment.

Suzy was hovering above him, worry stark across her face. She sagged a little when realised that he was conscious, her shoulders falling in relief.

"Oh, thank God. Danny, are you okay? How do you feel?”

He wheezed.

“Not...not the best I’ve ever been, Suze. What’s happening? And what am I lying on?”

The soft thing under his head moved and Arin’s voice said, “Uh, that’d be me. You’re on my skirt.”

Danny tried to crane his neck to look, but that hurt like a bastard so he settled for giving Suzy his “what the fuck is going on” look. It was a good look. He’d practiced it. Suzy looked uncomfortable, glancing at their surroundings. The shadows looked normal to Danny, but if tonight had proved anything it was that he had no idea what was happening any more.

“This isn’t...really the place to have this conversation. Do you think you can walk?”

Now that was the million dollar question. He tried bending a leg experimentally, and it didn’t fall off, so that was a plus. The other one didn’t either. Good. Bracing his hands on the ground, he levered himself upright, and promptly overbalanced, falling straight into Suzy’s arms.

He heard a snicker from behind him, and then a pair of strong arms were under his, pulling him upwards as Suzy’s kept him from pitching forward again. In a different state of mind, the warmth of Arin’s hands on him might have done funny things to his chest that he carefully didn’t think about, but for the moment he was mostly trying not to fall over, or vomit, or both.

Suzy and Arin made sure he was more or less upright, then freed a hand each and pressed their palms together, muttering something. There was a flash of light, and Danny closed his eyes with a groan. When he opened them again, they were wearing normal clothes again, no lace or poof to be seen. He felt queasy.

They made their way back slowly, Danny slung between the others, one arm supporting him on each side. The walk seemed a lot longer than it had earlier that night, and Danny was even more on edge. Were the shadows darker than they should be? Was something else about to attack? Was he about to see yet another thing that the rational parts of his brain couldn’t cope with?

Thankfully, they made it home without incident, Suzy and Arin lowering Danny onto the couch carefully, mindful of how he was wincing as his joints protested. Suzy disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to make tea, and Arin hunkered down in front of him, looking him over carefully.

“Do you need anything? Does anything feel broken?”

Danny shook his head. Everything hurt, but he could breathe and move all his fingers and toes, so he was probably okay. Arin looked at him critically for another moment, then shrugged and flopped onto the sofa next to him. They sat in silence for a minute, two, Arin not pushing, Danny completely lost as to how to start asking the questions that were piling up in his head.

Thank heavens for Suzy. She padded in from the kitchen with three mugs of tea, perching on Danny’s other side and passing two of them over. She gave Arin what Danny thought of as their Married Look, the kind that made him suspect that they’d developed some kind of telepathy, and laid a gentle hand on Danny’s knee.

“Danny, there’s some stuff we haven’t told you about what we do,” she began. Danny made a weak sound of assent. He didn’t have practice with this kind of conversation, and being socially lost made his anxiety start to creep up the sides of his throat, never mind everything else.

Suzy was still talking. “We’re...magical girls. Like from cartoons. We fight bad things, like what was in that alley tonight. We’re not the only ones, there are others all over the world, but it’s all pretty hush-hush, and there aren’t many others in this area.”

Danny was vaguely aware that his mouth was probably hanging open, but that was so far down on his list of priorities right now that it didn’t even register. Suzy’s hand was a solid weight on his leg, and he could feel the press of Arin on his other side. That was good. It kept him grounded. It meant he probably wasn’t dreaming, or hallucinating, although frankly either of those situations would be easier to deal with.

He cleared his throat, for lack of anything more intelligent to say. Looked at the floor. At the wall. At Suzy’s hand. At his fingernails. At Arin.

“Magical girls?”

Arin shrugged. “Yeah, man. It’s kind of a job title, I guess. It’s not like one hundred percent literal.”

“Uh-huh.”

Suzy patted his leg. “Are you—are you okay with this? I know it’s a shock...” she trailed off, brows furrowed.

Danny realised that, absurdly, they were more nervous about the situation than he was. They thought he was—what, going to walk away from this whole crazy life he’d built with them because of this? Shit, he’d had worse revelations about people. At least this time no-one was cheating on him, or not paying their share of the rent, or getting the cops involved.

“It’s fine.” His voice cracked. He tried again. “It’s fine. Like, it’s...kind of cool? You’re like superheroes.”

He felt the tension drain out of the two of them as Suzy laughed. “Sort of! We don’t have super cool powers, though. Just weapons and the...sparkly-changy thing. You saw that, right?”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, it was kinda trippy. You look super nice in...chiffon, or taffeta, or whatever. With the lighting and stuff.”

She smiled at that, but it was replaced too quickly with a look of concern. “Danny, I’m happy we don’t have to hide this from you anymore but what happened tonight was dangerous. You could have gotten really hurt.”

“Bro, the thing that got you? Shit’s nasty, if we hadn’t heard you yell...” Arin’s voice petered out. Oh. It had been that bad? Reflexively, Danny lifted a hand to his neck, where he’d felt the first chill before the blackness had descended. Did the skin feel different, or was he imagining it? Just how close had he come to what Arin was averting his eyes from instead of saying out loud?

Suzy’s face was determined, her brows low as she took Danny’s hands, making him look her in the eye. “You have to promise not to follow us again, okay? You can’t defend yourself if things get bad, and we can’t look out for you while we’re fighting. It’s not safe.”

Fuck, he’d made them worry. God, Avidan, you can’t have one outing without scaring your best friends half to death? And putting them in some kind of spooky danger to boot?

He held her gaze and squeezed her hands in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “I promise, Suze. No more danger Dan.”

The relief was as palpable in Arin’s voice as it was in Suzy’s face as he clapped a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Good to hear it. I know you, uh, caught some zees back there but I think we’re all pretty wiped. Might be a good idea to head to bed.”

Bed, yes. In the guest room. In the dark, with no weapon and no way to protect himself against whatever the fuck was lurking in the shadows, things he’d stopped believing in once he was no longer a child but now he knew were _real_ , and _here_ , and could _hurt him_.

A cold hand gripped Danny’s throat and he barely managed to get the first syllable of his reply out before it closed up, leaving him desperately sucking air through his nose. At once, Suzy and Arin had a hand each on his back, their thumbs moving in twin tiny circles against his shoulderblades, Suzy’s other hand gently touching his cheek.

“What’s wrong, Dan? Can you tell us?”

He clenched his fists, remembering every breathing exercise from every singing teacher he’d ever had, focusing on the jumping mess that was his diaphragm and forcing it down, up, down, up, trying to control the swell of panic enough to get words out.

“I—I don’t—not alone. Please?”

“Of course not, hey, hey,” Arin’s voice was soft, soothing, a low rumble by his shoulder. “We’re not gonna leave you on your own. We’re here as long as you need us.”

He looked up and saw the absolute sincerity in Arin’s expression, mirrored on his other side in Suzy’s. Their hands were warm through his shirt, and he trusted them with his life.

Maybe he was going to be okay.


	3. The Morning After the Night Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny wakes up, and has a couple of conversations in which he learns less than he'd like to.

The late morning sun woke Danny as it shone through his eyelids, which was a nice change from an alarm clock or someone shaking him. And he wasn’t on the floor of an alley, which was even better. He cricked his neck experimentally, grunting as the vertebrae protested, and at last opened his eyes, taking stock. He was sitting – well, slumping – on a couch, in a room that wasn’t his own. The Grump room. Why—oh. Oh, that.

There was a warm weight against his side, soft but insistently heavy, trapping his arm. It mumbled as he shifted, with an inflection that sounded like a complaint. He looked down, and the sight of Arin’s blond streak made something glow around where he thought his heart probably was.

He nudged the Arin-lump with his free arm – incidentally the only arm that still had blood flow, thanks pal – prompting another grumble, and, eventually, a lessening of the weight leaning on him. Arin yawned cavernously, running a hand through his hair and scrubbing at his eyes.

“Nngg. Morning,” he muttered, voice still croaky with sleep. “You okay?”

Danny thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I’m good. What...what happened last night?”

Arin looked concerned. “You, uh, you followed us and then—“

Danny cut him off, shaking his head. “No, no, I remember that. I just don’t remember the bit where we agreed we’d camp out on the couch and fuck up our backs for the next few days.”

Arin shrugged. “I guess we just fell asleep. We were all pretty wiped, with everything that went down. Shit, we should have checked you for concussion or something, that was dumb. How do you even do that?”

“Something about the eyes, I think. I dunno,” Danny said, doing a quick mental check-list. Limbs, yep. Headache, minimal. Senses, no worse than they usually were. Mental presence, standard just-woken-up fug but nothing more serious. Result: probably no concussion. His place in the newly-weird universe was less certain.

Speaking of which – “Hey, where’s Suzy?”

Arin levered himself off the couch, groaning as his back straightened. “Ughhh. She might have had the sense to sleep in an actual bed. I’ll go look.”

Danny slumped back into the couch as Arin wandered off, idly pushing his hair off his face. So, that had happened. Last night had definitely been a thing. With the alley and the nearly-dying and the skirts and the post-panic-attack cuddle party. It hadn’t been some weird Skittles-induced dream. Okay then.

He vaguely registered the sounds of Arin padding through the house, opening doors, and finally a muffled, Suzy-pitched shout of “Hey Danny! Good morning!” from the direction of the kitchen. Something about breakfast followed, but he wasn’t really listening. He sat for a while, staring at the ceiling without seeing it, trying to get his thoughts in order. How did you even process something like that? Some things he didn’t have coping strategies for.

He was deep into his what-the-fuck rut when Arin slapped him on the shoulder he’d previously been sleeping on, sending pins and needles shooting down his arm.

“Son of a _bitch_! What was that for?” he yelped.

Arin snorted. “We’ve been calling you for like five minutes, man. Breakfast’s up.”

“Oh.”

Arin held out a hand and Danny took it with his good arm, pulling himself off the couch with only a small stagger. He tried to work the tingling out of his arm as they walked into the kitchen to no avail, but the sight of pancakes and a big ol’ mug of coffee did wonders for his mood. As he applied himself to the warm stack with enthusiasm, a thought occurred to him.

“Mph—“

“Food, Danny.”

He swallowed. “Sorry. Does anyone else...know? About you guys?”

“It’s not really something we tell people. Barry knows, though,” Suzy said, sipping her tea. “He helps us out with stuff sometimes.”

Danny blinked. “What kind of stuff?”

“Computer stuff. He sees if there’s any reports of spooky stuff around the city, and if we think we’re gonna have to deal with anything extra bad he keeps an eye on us with surveillance-y things.”

Arin nodded. “It’s not that we didn’t trust you, before you start thinking that. Barry’s known since forever, we didn’t just decide to tell him instead of you.”

That was a relief.  It didn’t answer why they’d told Barry in the first place, but he wasn’t going to push it. He finished off the pancakes contentedly, and picked up the coffee, breathing in the smell. Oh, actually—

“Dude, I should go home before long, I smell super bad,” he admitted, only a little abashed. He would also appreciate getting out of the jeans he’d slept in, but that would have sounded weird if he’d said it out loud.

Arin nodded, looked at Suzy, nodded again. He looked apprehensive, for all that he sounded nonchalant when he asked, “You’ll come back later, though, right? For Grumps?”

Danny grinned. “Yeah, man. I’ll be back.”

\---

Barry was in the lounge when Danny came through the door, probably editing Grumps footage from the laughter coming from the speakers and the crooked smile on his face. Danny slumped across the back of the couch until his head was on the same level as Barry’s, gazing at the laptop screen.

“Hey bro. Y’alright?” he said.

Barry barely looked up. “Yeah, I’m good. Arin and Suzy okay?”

Danny hesitated, contemplating a neat parkour move to get to the front of the couch, before re-evaluating the likelihood of him breaking something and opting to go around it the normal way instead.

“Yeah, they’re doing good. Um.”

Barry finally raised his head properly, frowning a little. “Um?”

“So I...” he paused, totally lost as to how to word his next weird conversation in less than two days. “I found out about their. Thing. The. The magical girl thing.”

“Ohhhh,” Barry nodded, turning back to his laptop. “Yeah, that’s a thing. They tell you?”

 Danny made an approximate noise. “Not exactly. I sort of found out. It’s a long story.”

Barry’s eyes flicked up for a moment before going straight back to the screen. “You followed them, didn’t you,” he said flatly.

“Sort of. Yeah. A bit.”

Barry chuckled. “Dumbass. And I bet you’re full of questions.”

Danny slumped, defeated. “Yeah. And you’re not gonna answer any of them, are you?”

“Nope. Not my place. But I’ll tell you this,” he said, actually giving Danny his full attention for the first time in the conversation. “They know what they’re doing, they’ve been doing it a long-ass time. You don’t need to worry about them. But,” he gave Danny a sympathetic look, “if you want, you can watch the feed with me when they’re patrolling. Make sure they’re safe.”

Danny sighed, relieved. “Thanks, man. Means a lot.”

Barry clapped him on the shoulder. “Now go take a shower. You stink.”

Thank god for small normalities, Danny thought, as he headed up to the bathroom, taking the stairs two at a time.


	4. New Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things finally change, and by "change" I mean "some people get their act together".

Time passed, and Danny was surprised at how quickly they settled into a new, comfortable routine. He would shuffle round to the Hanson household mid-afternoon, join Arin in drinking too much Monster and eating too much candy, and Grump until their jaws hurt first from laughing and later from yawning. Then they ate something at least nominally healthier, and Suzy and Arin swapped pyjama pants for jeans and headed out, Danny waving to them as they strode out the door.

And then he’d spend two hours biting at his nails until they came home, blessedly whole. He’d sat with Barry at first, watching the grainy footage over his shoulder, but in the event it had only made it worse. Watching the two of them fight, hair and skirts flying, screwing up the camera’s focus whenever they did some special sparkly attack that sent light skittering around the darkness...it was cool, in a way, but it was also terrifying. Every time something lunged out of the shadows towards them he’d let out a muffled yell, as if he could warn them, and no matter how many times Barry said that it was okay, that he’d done the same thing when he first started, it was getting to him.

So he’d stopped. Mostly he played games, or wrote songs – none of which ended up even remotely Ninja Sex Party appropriate – or just sat on the couch, watching his feet bounce and his hands shake. The worst part was the feeling that he was constantly standing on a cliff, waiting for something to come along to make it even worse. He mentioned it to Barry one night, but he shook his head.

“Nah, they’re at the top of their game, y’know? If something went wrong, they could handle it.”

Danny rubbed at his neck, trying to convince himself.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

\---

It got worse.

It got way, way worse, though definitely not in the way Danny had expected.

Well. Worse was one word for it.

It started one night after a patrol. Things had gone...not wrong, not exactly, but definitely not as right as they could have. Arin had a nasty gash on one arm – “Now I’ll never be an arm model!” he’d moaned, melodramatically, as Danny helped him through the front door – and Suzy was grimacing whenever she moved one shoulder. Barry was out of town, so it fell to Danny to sit them down, fetch an armful of gauze and antiseptic and try not to drop the lot of it as he staggered back to the couch.

Adrenaline gone, Arin was fading as Danny took his arm and tried not to shake as he set the stitches. He’d watched some first aid videos on YouTube for fear this might happen, but they’d been no preparation for the weight of Arin’s arm in his hands, the heat of the skin, the flash of white bone in the raw pink of the wound as he slowly sutured it closed. He felt sick. Arin was making tiny noises as the needle dragged through his flesh, his free hand white-knuckled around Suzy’s, forehead on Danny’s shoulder. Danny could feel his breath, ragged and hot, through the thin cotton of his shirt.

By the time he was done, wound sterilized, gauze in place, Arin’s eyelids were fluttering, deep into the post-fight crash. He was leaning heavily into Danny, breathing slowing. Suzy was rubbing little circles on the hand she was still holding, but she caught Danny’s eye and jerked her chin upwards, motioning towards the stairs. Danny nodded.

Between them they led Arin to the master bedroom, prompting his shuffling feet up the stairs, tugging off his shoes as he scrubbed blearily at his eyes. They got him lying down under the covers, carefully avoiding his arm, and as Danny crossed the threshold into the hallway Suzy took his hand.

“Thanks, Dan,” she murmured, her fingers loosely tangled in his. “It means a lot to us that you’re here, you know that, right? It’s good to come home to someone.”

He wanted to make a joke about adding another person to their marriage, break the tension that he could feel in the air between them, but anything funny was getting lost between his brain and his mouth, and he could only croak out a “T-thanks,” in reply.

Suzy squeezed his hand briefly, and then she was rising onto her tiptoes and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“Goodnight,” she smiled, and a moment later Danny was looking at the white wood of the door, breathing in her lingering scent.

\---

Arin was groggy but cheerful at breakfast the next morning, wincing when he moved his arm too much, but happily spooning down Captain Crunch and kicking his feet under the counter. Suzy dropped a kiss on the top of his head as she walked by, brushing a hand against Danny’s arm in greeting.

He dropped into a chair, gently kicking Arin’s swinging foot in lieu of a good morning, and got a full-mouthed grin in return. And a kick back. Before long they were playing half-footsie half-kickwars under the table, giggling like children. Suzy laughed indulgently as she realised what was going on, plonking down a bowl of cereal for Dan and dangling the spoon in front of his nose.

“You keep doing that, you’ll get food everywhere,” she chuckled, ruffling both of their hair affectionately. Danny gave Arin one last kick for good measure, but when he let his legs relax he realised that they were sitting close enough for their feet to touch, just a little. Arin didn’t pull away.

So neither did Danny. Shit, maybe this was like footsie chicken, or whatever. Which wouldn’t explain why he could feel his heartbeat in his throat, or the way the air felt suddenly fragile, laden with something intangible. He risked raising his eyes from his cereal and saw Arin glance at him from under his eyelashes, a look he couldn’t interpret on his face.

Danny nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a kiss pressed to the top of his head, and looked up in shock to find Suzy standing by them, smiling a little. She picked up Arin’s now-empty bowl, and as she placed it in the sink Danny could have sworn she gave him a look over her shoulder. A look that was a lot like the look Arin had given him.

He went back to his cereal, and tried to keep his brain from overheating.

 ---

That was how it started. How it carried on was largely the same – little touches and glances, the weight of a head on a shoulder, the heat of bare arms just barely touching. Danny never shied away – god, as if he could – but every time he considered maybe initiating something his heart would nearly stop in his chest for fear of rejection. What if he was just misreading things? They were married, for god’s sake, and they were his best friends, and goddammit he wanted to have at least these relationships without screwing them up.

As it happened, Suzy’s patience ran out before his fear did. As he let himself in – he’d had a key for a couple weeks, and Arin’s hands had lingered on his when he gave it to him – Suzy took his hand, her face determined, and led him to the couch. Damn, they’d had a lot of important conversations on that couch of late. He faintly noticed the familiar sensation of his stomach knotting up in worry.

Arin sat on his other side, and each of them laid a hand on his. Well, shit. This was it, wasn’t it? He’d fucked up and now they were going to ask him to leave. It had been a nice few months, but it was done. He felt the tension building in his gut, and bowed his head in the face of the inevitable.

“Danny, can we talk to you about something?” Suzy said, her voice gentle.

He forced a smile. “Sure, Suze. What’s up?”

“These last few weeks, Arin and I have been doing some talking, and we...” she paused, taking in the panic in his eyes, “Danny, you know we love you, right? Like, we love you a lot.”

Arin nodded emphatically. “Like a fuckton, dude. You’re super important to us.”

Danny braced himself for what he knew was coming next. Suzy put a hand under his chin, raised it so he’d meet her eyes.

“We  _love_ you, Dan Avidan. And we want...we want you to be a part of this,” she gestured between her and Arin, “part of what we have. We want to show you how we feel,” she hesitated a moment, and plunged on, “Is that something you want?”

Wait. What?

Arin must have seen his confusion, because he squeezed his hand a little, nudged him with his shoulder. “What we’re trying to say is we want to kiss your big dumb face a lot. And it’d be pretty neat if you wanted to do that to us. You in?”

Danny gaped. They weren’t suggesting what they thought he was. Were they? Holy shit. Holy _shit_.

“I, uh. You guys. I,” he croaked, words failing him completely. God, they were both looking at him so hopefully, and their hands were so warm.

Damn. Well, if he couldn’t manage words, there were other ways of telling people things.

He folded his fingers around theirs, brought their hands to his chest, held them there like birds, like precious things. He kissed their knuckles, all ten of them, feeling the hard bone under the fragile skin, almost shaking with the weight of how much this meant, what this could lead to, the new knowledge that had suddenly reshaped his world. He heard them breathe out in relief, almost in unison, and when he looked up their faces were close to his. He rested his forehead against theirs, letting out a slow, shuddering breath, still not trusting his lungs.

When their lips met his, he was ready for them, and he welcomed them with his whole heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took you long enough, guys.


	5. Hump Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't do that, Ross.

It took six weeks for Arin’s arm to heal sufficiently for him to go back on patrol. That was six weeks of a frustrated, achy, and – heh – grumpy Arin moping around the house, getting on everyone’s nerves because he couldn’t patrol or draw and it was making him miserable. Even regular gaming pulled at his stitches, never mind motion controls. Suzy was exhausted from having to do the work of both of them on patrols, and Danny was even more nervy, nails bitten to the quick from the knowledge that no-one was there watching her back. Only Barry seemed unaffected, serenely keeping the lot of them with their heads above water in work and...other work.

Five weeks in, Suzy was lying on the couch, her head in Danny’s lap, working the cramps out of her fingers from a long afternoon bent over her taxidermy table. Arin had gone to bed early, bored by what was on TV, and it wasn’t quite dark enough to patrol yet, so they were at something of a loose end. Danny had his phone in one hand and the other in Suzy’s hair, gently carding through it. It never ceased to fascinate him, the way the blonde and black played against each other as he ran it through his fingers, how the bold streak merged into the greater whole when he drew them together.

Suzy sighed, cracking her knuckles one last time.

“I’m so not feeling this right now,” she groaned, “I’m too tired to patrol.” She drew the last syllable out into a plaintive noise, wrinkling her nose.

Danny shrugged. “You don’t have to, I guess? Taking one night off isn’t so bad.” Truth be told, his nerves would be glad of a night without worry. It would also be nice to have a night with the three of them which wasn’t interrupted by work, if they could get Arin to wake up. Or, hell, maybe they could just join him in nap-land. That would be nice.

Suzy shook her head ruefully. “Rules are rules, buddy. You wanna get the skirt, you gotta do the--” she broke off, yawning hugely, “work.”

“Why did you get the skirt, out of interest?” Danny asked, trying to sound nonchalant. They’d never really talked about this before – why Suzy and Arin had gotten started on the whole magical girl thing. It had never seemed like the right time to ask.

“Arin did it first...I think he found out about it from someone on the internet, you know how he is,” she began. Danny nodded. He knew how Arin was. “I didn’t want to let him do it alone, and I thought...maybe I could make a difference, you know? Once you know about what’s going on, how many people get hurt, it’s hard not to want to do something about it. Right?”

Suzy tilted her head back, looking up at him. God, her eyes looked huge from this angle, so elegantly framed by her long lashes. He stroked her hairline a little, careful not to smear her foundation. It was strange in the best way, being able to do this, not having to resist the urge to hold her when he wanted to, not having to ignore the swell of his heart when she looked at him. It made something settle in his chest, something that had felt out-of-joint for as long as he could remember.

She was smiling indulgently when he came back to himself. “You were away with the fairies again, Dan,” she chuckled, her voice warm.

Danny ducked his head, a little embarrassed. “Sorry. I just...you’re so great, you know? You do this crazy, brave thing every night and no-one knows and no-one thanks you for it. You just do it because it’s good.” He wasn’t sure any more words would make it past the growing lump in his throat so he stopped trying, pressing a kiss to her forehead and hoping that that would convey what he was trying to get across.

Judging by her soft sigh, it did. “You know. That’s enough for me. I’m just glad we could keep you safe.”

He grinned crookedly, feeling a sudden urge to break the heaviness of the mood. “You can keep me safe, but are you safe from...the tickle monster?” he crowed, digging his fingers into her sides. She screeched, kicking her legs in surprise, and the movement took them both off balance and dragged them off the couch, tumbling into a laughing pile in the floor, utterly content.

_\---_

Ross O’Donovan was having a monumentally shitty night.

It had started fine. Holly was doing something complicated with fibreglass and the fumes were giving him a headache, so she’d gently suggested that maybe he go out and enjoy himself instead of whining about it. It was a good idea – he’d not been out for a drink in forever, practically since he moved to the city, what with being forever busy with animation and everything else. He deserved a night on the tiles.

And then it turned out that LA bars were fundamentally unconvinced of the ability of the Australian government to prove that its citizens were over the age of twenty-one.

Four unsympathetic doormen and one less picky bar so shady he’d barely finished his pint – wait, no, bottle, damn Yanks - for fear of a shanking later, he was moping his way down a street on the way home. Probably on the way home. Maybe. God, fuck this city and its identical roads and its stupid alcohol laws.

He skirted round a dumpster and into an alley by way of a shortcut, hands firmly in his pockets, shoulders somewhere round his ears in protest against the injustice of the world at large.

A slight figure at the end of the alley caught his eye, silhouetted in the glare of a streetlight. A girl, almost certainly. Long dark hair, slender, in a poofy skirt. His eyes reached her face, barely visible in the stark shadows, and...no way. No fucking way.

“Suzy?” he yelled. What a pleasant surprise! He’d not seen Suzy – or Arin, for that matter – in ages, for all they lived in the same city. He picked up his pace, striding over towards her. Damn, this called for a hug.

As he drew nearer, he realised that her outfit was right-out weird. Like, Suzy had her own style, but this was kind of out there even for her. The lace and the poof and the pastels were odd. And was she holding...giant scissors? They were kind of glittery, but they looked worryingly sharp, and what was she even doing with them here of all places?

He was just aware enough to see the look of horror on her face before the darkness hit him, and after that there was nothing but silence and the endless cold.

_\---_

Danny was dozing on the couch when the door slammed open. He jerked upwards, nearly tipping over the carefully-prepared food he’d left next to him for when Suzy got home, and gawped in confusion at what he saw coming into the house.

Suzy’s face was a veritable thundercloud as she staggered over the threshold, dragging with her the limp body of a skinny guy who looked vaguely familiar. He was drooling a little.

Danny jumped up, grabbing the guy’s other arm and helping Suzy lower him onto the couch. She groaned as the weight left her, and Danny remembered the way she’d been favouring her left shoulder since the fight five weeks back. Shit, that was still hurting? He’d not even realised.

The guy on the couch wasn’t moving, but he _was_ breathing, so he was...probably okay? What did you even do with unconscious people you maybe possibly knew who were on  your boyfriend and girlfriend’s couch at three in the morning? He didn’t think there was a rulebook for this kind of thing, and if there was it probably involved the police.

Suzy dragged a hand through her hair, flopping down on the floor.

“I was patrolling downtown, he saw me transformed, a spectre got him before I could get it,” she summarised, sounding as tired as she looked. “He’s an old friend of Arin’s, but I don’t...Jesus, Dan, why does this have to happen today?” She looked at him mournfully and he felt a sudden wave of sympathy. God, she must be so tired.

They lapsed into silence, staring at the prone lump on the couch, until a tumble of footprints down the stairs broke them out of their reverie and Arin stuck his head into the room.

“Hey, what’s— _Ross_?”

“Hey, honey,” Suzy said, drily, looking up from the carpet. “Aren’t you gonna ask me how work was?”

Arin snorted, rubbing blearily at his eyes. “How _was_ work, sweetie? Did you bring home any unconscious Australians?”

“How did you know?” Suzy gasped, the corners of her mouth tugging upwards. “Seriously though, I kind of need a hand with this.”

“Really.” Arin crossed the room, leaning over Ross and slapping him lightly on the cheek. “Hey. Hey. Ross. Wake up, you dumb baby. _Hey_.”

The guy – Ross – groaned a little, shifting on the couch, but didn’t open his eyes. Arin sighed.

“If you don’t wake up _right the fuck now_ , I’m gonna give you a big sloppy kiss. And you’re gonna _love it_.”

Ross’s eyes shot open, and he looked up at Arin in shock.

“Dude, gross!”

Arin laughed. “See, he’s fine. Insufferable as ever.”

Ross was looking around in confusion, rubbing at the back of his head. “What happened? Is this your place? And who’s this guy?”

Danny blinked. “Um. I’m Danny. Hi.”

That seemed to satisfy him, at least until he looked at Suzy. “Hey, hold on. I saw-- I saw  you, right? You were dressed up all weird and...and then...” he trailed off, frowning. Danny recognised the look – he’d felt it on his own face all those months back, sitting on the same couch and trying to wrap his mind around the fuzzy gaps in his memory.

He couldn’t contribute much to this particular conversation so he quietly let himself out of the room and into the kitchen, resigning himself to putting the post-patrol food in the refrigerator for the time being. In the absence of anything else to do he did the dishes, and it was elbow-deep in bubbles that Arin found him twenty minutes later.

“Hey,” he murmured, looping an arm loosely around Danny’s waist and resting his head on his shoulder.

“Hey yourself,” Danny replied, kissing Arin’s temple as he shook suds from his hands. “Ross okay?”

“Yeah, he’s not gonna die or freak out or whatever. Kind of weirdly excited about the whole magical girls thing, though. You were way more mellow.”

Danny huffed a laugh, grabbing the towel from by the sink and drying his arms. “You told him everything?” he said, as they walked back towards the Grump room.

“Didn’t seem much point in lying. We should probably think up some fuckin’ excuse for if people see us, but...eh.” He shrugged easily, shoulders rolling under his shirt. “It’s happened like twice, whatever.”

Danny paused with his hand on the door, realising that he was hearing raised voices from inside. He pushed open the door, and—

“Just one video! Maybe a couple!”

“No! Oh my god, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.”

“It’d be awesome! People would love it!”

“It wouldn’t be awesome, it would be-- what part of ‘secret identity’ do you not understand?”

Suzy was pacing around the room, hands thrown up in exasperation while Ross perched on the edge of the couch, expression pleading. He looked up as they walked through the door.

“Hey guys! Can I do a YouTube series about your whole magic warrior thing?”

Danny, Arin and Suzy shared a look.

“Fuck no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goddammit Ross.


	6. Troubleshooting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's spin doctoring, and then there's this.

The news broke with a phonecall at 5am. The harsh squawk of Arin’s ringtone woke Danny with a jump and he started groping blindly at the nightstand, desperately trying to shut it the fuck up so he could go back to sleep. It took a moment for him to realise that it wasn’t Arin’s normal call tone but the seldom-heard song reserved solely for calls from The Organisation.

That was how he thought of it, at least, capital letters clunking sinisterly into place. Suzy and Arin had assured him that whoever it was who kept tabs on the world’s magical girls wasn’t some creepy shadowy cabal, but Danny remained – as ever – nervous. Suzy and Arin’s side of their phone conversations, at least, didn’t sound cowed or even particularly obedient, which was reassuring.

He kicked a groaning Arin under the covers, prompting him to throw a warm arm over Danny’s chest and grab his phone. He sat up when he saw the number, pressing the phone to his ear and coughing to clear his throat.

“What’s happened?” he asked, voice more serious than Danny was used to hearing it. There was a bark of static from the other side of the phone and Arin frowned.

“Shit, seriously? Where?”

Another tinny answer. Arin was staring into the gloom at the end of the bed with what Danny thought of as his calculating face – the one he wore when he was scheduling, or planning an animation, or (his favourite) working out how to take Danny apart in the best possible way. Suzy sat up, looking at Arin like she was trying to work out what was going on.

“Okay. Send me the footage, I’ll call you when I’ve talked to Suzy. Don’t--“ he stopped, looked at the _call ended_ screen, and dropped the phone on the coverlet, breathing out slowly and deliberately. He raised his head.

“We’ve got a problem.”

\---

The problem became apparent over a hurried cup of coffee and a repeatedly-refreshed email inbox. The footage was grainy but unmistakeable: two magical girls, still new to the job by the self-consciousness of their movements, caught transforming by some asshole with a cameraphone. Shit.

Suzy was bouncing her knee under the table, tapping her nails against her lips as she thought. She kept beginning sentences then frowning and interrupting herself.

“What if--“

“How--“

“I thi--“

Finally she groaned, spreading her palms flat on the table to stop them shaking.

“What the fuck are we going to do,” she asked flatly.

Arin shook his head. “I wish I knew. I don’t know if we can pull this back. I just…fuck. I don’t know.” There was a blank hopelessness on his face that frightened Danny, sent his gut into tight, cold knots. Arin wasn’t supposed to look like that. Arin always had ideas, plans, strategies – he was never as lost as he was right now.

“We have to think of something. There has to be something we can do to--to fix this,” he muttered, starting to sound desperate.

Danny laid a hand on Arin’s.

“I don’t know if we can make this go away, man. The cat’s kind of out of the bag.”

Arin bowed his head wearily. “The media have it already. It’ll be running on the morning news shows. We missed the goddamn mark by _that_ much. They’ve called in everyone who knows anything about media stuff  but I don’t think anyone’s doing better than we are.”

Dan squeezed his hand. “Then it’s damage control, right? You can’t make it go away, so we have to work with what we’ve got.”

Arin looked at their intertwined hands. “Everything’s going to change, Dan,” he said, his voice small. “I don’t know how to stop it.”

“I know,” Dan said, softly as he knew how. “But I don’t think we have any choice.”

\---

The rest of the day was mostly terse phone calls and Danny trying to keep the both of them from imploding from stress. Whoever from the Organisation they were talking to didn’t seem to have many more ideas than they did, and whatever they did suggest soon turned out to be unworkable.

“I just don’t understand how there wasn’t a strategy for this!” Danny complained as Arin paced up and down the hallway outside the living room. “No-one saw this coming?”

Suzy shrugged. “Our bosses are fucking idiots. Also the rules for what we do were set down like…a thousand years ago or something. Smartphones weren’t really a thing back then.”

“Ohh,” Danny said, understanding. “Still, they should probably have maybe, I dunno, updated things?”

“Tell me about it,” Suzy snorted. “We got complacent and now it’s come back to bite us in the ass.”

“It’s a nice ass, though,” he joked, needing at least to lighten the mood a little. Suzy laughed, thumping him on the leg.

“Idiot,” she chuckled, fondly.

\---

Ross and Barry came over later on the principle of five heads being better than three, even if one of them was Ross. They’d both seen the news, and Ross was babbling as he came through the door.

“Guys what’s even happening I can’t believe it everyone’s saying that it’s witches or angels some people think it’s fake but how could those lights be fake like _come on_ oh yeah do you know those guys? Are they friends of yours? The news said they were in Norway but you all know each other right?” – he paused for breath, blessedly – “What are we even going to do though seriously are you gonna come out – heheheh, come out – and be all “hey guys we’re magical girls” oh boy then I’d get to be like “hey guys I know magical girls” that would be awesome!”

He stopped when he realise that lot of them were staring at him in incredulous silence. He coughed.

“Uh. I mean. Hi guys. Are you okay?”

Danny rolled his eyes and steered him towards the kitchen, where Barry was unloading plastic and foil containers from a plastic bag. Ross’s eyes widened at the sight.

“Ooh, Chinese! Neat.”

They ate in companionable quiet, all of them needing the refuel.  Plates empty and bellies full, they got to the business of the evening.

“Management wants us on this, turns out we’re basically it as far as media people go, but we are so out of ideas it’s not even funny,” Arin began, palms spread. “Danny says we gotta do damage control, which, yeah, but how do we even start with that? Full disclosure or…what?”

Barry looked thoughtful. “I think Danny’s right. What’s important is how the information gets to people. We need a familiar, friendly face of magical girling, a full-disclosure announcement, all that jazz. And we need it fast.”

“You mean like…going fully public?” Suzy asked, looking worried. Barry nodded.

“The whole deal.”

She scratched her head. “Damn. That’s really weird to think about? We’ve been doing this in secret for so long, I don’t know how I’d even tell people.”

Ross slammed his hands on the table, making them all jump.

“I’ve got it!”

Arin looked at him askance. “I mean, good, but could you maybe not give us all heart attacks?”

“Sorry,” Ross muttered, having at least the decency to look abashed. “But I think I know what we can do…”

\---

“Ready?” asked Barry, peering out from behind the camera. Arin nodded.

“We got this. Let’s go.”

“Okay. Lights, camera…whatever. Do it.” He hit record.

Arin looked levelly into its mechanical eye and began.

“Hey everyone. This is Egoraptor, also known as Arin, you probably know me from Game Grumps or my channel or a buncha other dumb stuff. And you know my wife Suzy--“ he gestured towards Suzy, standing at his side, “from Grumps and Table Flip and her own channel. We gotta talk to you about something. A lot of you have seen the video that went viral this morning; we’ve seen it too. And we know what it is.”

He stopped for a moment, breathed out, steeled himself.

“The people in that video are magical girls. And so are we. Me and Suzy, thousands of other people around the world. Maybe more, I don’t know. We’re part of an organisation that fights stuff that most people don’t know about, bad stuff that lives in the shadows and hurts people in ways that those left behind can’t explain. We’ve been secret about it for a long time, because…well, you can probably figure that one out,” he ducked his head, huffing a laugh. “but we’re not gonna do that anymore. So we’re starting a new channel.”

Suzy took over then, bouncing on her toes and smiling winsomely. “The channel is for all our magical girl stuff! We’re gonna do vlogs, and Q and As, and all sorts of things. Don’t worry, Game Grumps and Table Flip and Mortem3r” – Danny could almost hear the 3, that was impressive – “aren’t going to stop any time soon. You’ll just be able to catch up with us here, too!”

She looked at Arin, who winked back. “And to prove what we’ve been saying, we’ve got something to show you.” They pressed the palms of their hands together and the familiar glow filled the room. As it faded, Danny saw their changed silhouettes – the skirts, the frills, the weapons – coalesce into view. Arin tossed his hair and grinned.

“That’s all, YouTube. See you guys next time.”

Barry shut off the camera and Arin flopped onto the bed, throwing an arm over his eyes.

“I can’t believe we just did something Ross suggested. We’re doomed.”

\---

It had a hundred thousand views within a day. A million the next. After that they stopped counting because the press were at their doorstep and everything had kind of gone weird. There were press conferences. Yes, they were really magical girls. Yes, they worked for the public good. No, they weren’t vigilantes. Yes, the transformation was real. No, they had no intention of submitting for medical or any other kind of testing. Yes, they had every intention of co-operating with law enforcement if it was beneficial to their work. No, a giant pink bow did not technically fall within the remit of firearms laws. And they had no comment on the private matter of their relationship with Mr Avidan. Thank you, no more questions, goodbye.

Danny, Barry and Ross were on support duty, making tea and handling the endless phonecalls and ensuring that Suzy and Arin got six hours of sleep a night and enough food and time off their feet that they didn’t collapse in front of a dozen cameras. Danny provided extra backrubs and cuddles, amongst other things, but even those were barely keeping the two of them sane.

The worst part, at least from Suzy and Arin’s point of view, was that the press swarm meant that they hadn’t been able to patrol in a week. Everywhere they went they were surrounded by reporters, paparazzi, and general hangers-on, making any effective hunting an impossibility. It weighed heavily on their consciences, the knowledge that there were people getting hurt because of all of this bullshit.

But on the other hand, every fourth person they talked to wanted to know how they could help. And while most of them were dumb kids with delusions of heroism, some – the more experienced, the more serious, the ones with something hard and sure in their eyes – had actual potential. Those, Suzy would take aside, giving them a few words of advice and an address that Danny had as of yet failed to overhear.

From what Arin and Suzy had reported, management was pleased. It turned out the original rules regarding secrecy had been written when the term “witch hunt” wasn’t a metaphor and hadn’t taken into account the ability of social media to make the unknown exciting rather than threatening. It was kind of neat, to prove wrong the fears of a bunch of old dead folks. Well, they had been right about some people thinking they were in league with the devil. But people had probably thought that for a while anyway.

A week and a half had passed after the first video, and Danny was bundling Arin and Suzy into bed after a long day of press-wrangling. They were both nodding off almost before their heads hit the pillows, knocked out from the accumulated exhaustion of the past ten days. Danny settled himself in beside them, curling up around Arin’s back as Suzy snuggled into his front. Just as his eyes were drifting closed, he felt a touch on his arm, and saw Suzy looking at him over Arin’s shoulder.

“Dan?” she murmured, sleep softening her voice.

“Mm?”

“Thanks. For everything. Love you.” And with that she was asleep, snoring softly into the pillow.

“Love you too,” he murmured into the darkness, and joined them in sleep.


	7. Shine Upon Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan makes a decision.

Things evened out, after a time. The media camped around their door skulked away in dribs and drabs to chase the next story, though there was a core who persisted in trying to get photos of them leaving the house or patrolling or whatever. Mostly press interaction was on their own terms, which was not to say that it was in any way infrequent. They were on trashy talk shows and serious news interviews and, on one memorable occasion which Danny wished he could tell his ten-year-old self about, MTV.

Patrols picked back up again, what with the relative privacy, but this time around Arin and Suzy weren’t alone - the new recruits walked step-by-step with them, learning the ropes, or at least how not to pass out and/or vomit on your first go. Not all of them stuck it out, but there was a fierce pride in Suzy’s eyes when she talked about those who remained.

Barry had his own little group of protégés, though his were less sparkly and more  Vitamin D-deprived. Some interviewer had asked him what those less able to take up their swords could do to  help the cause, and he’d made some offhand remark about how a few more pairs of eyes on the vidfeed would help only to be buried under an avalanche of emails from volunteers.

So he’d taken them under his proverbial wing, and the results had surprised more or less everyone. Not only did half the magical girls in the world now have keen eyes watching their patrols, they now had a skeletal but rapidly growing database of spectre activity in populated areas. Across five continents bright kids were coding and collaborating and creating, and the scope of it made Danny a little breathless. Barry was quiet about the whole thing, but there was a warm glow to his smile when he was asked about it that made his feelings apparent.

For Danny it was like being at the eye of a storm. He spent his days watching the absurd hurricane around him, Suzy and Barry and Arin and even Ross running in and out of the house and the new office, working harder than he’d ever seen them work, going about the whole affair with a determination and dedication that he envied as much as it made him worry.

Oh yeah, the worry. That hadn’t gone away. It helped a bit that Suzy and Arin weren’t patrolling the LA backstreets on their own any more, but that didn’t make  the spectres and associated spookies any less dangerous, nor his blood pressure any lower. It had been pushed out of his mind for a while in the press explosion, but now things were settling down the little voice at the back of his skull was back, and just as unnerving.

He felt completely disempowered to do anything about it. He couldn’t make the spectres disappear, and he couldn’t keep Suzy and Arin from their calling. He breathed a sigh of relief every time they came home after a patrol, swept them into his arms to reassure himself of their solidity, their warmth, but he knew that he could never stop them from leaving in the first place.

There had to be something he could do.

By the time Suzy and Arin came home carrying a three-quarters-dead apprentice between them, faces ashen, something approaching a plan had coalesced in his mind. By the time he sat Barry down in a half-hour between editing and working on the database, the plan was iron-clad and resolute.

Barry had his distracted face on again.

“Hey man, what’s up? I gotta go in a bit, but…” he said, closing his laptop as Danny dropped onto the couch.

Danny paused. Somehow in his meticulous planning, he hadn’t actually thought how he was going to initiate this conversation. He cleared his throat.

“Uh, so, Barry. Like, you know how people become…magical girls, right?” Barry was looking at him evenly.

“Uh-huh.”

“And that’s…a thing that people can just do? You-- they go to a place and do the thing and then boom bang magical girl?”

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s not like a test or whatever, you don’t have to know math or…”

Barry rolled his eyes and dug in his pocket, pulling out a bit of paper and scribbling something on it.

“Go here. They’ll know what to do with you. And for God’s sake wear your nice jeans.”

\---

Danny looked at the building in front of him and checked the address for the fourteenth time. The place was…unremarkable, in a word. Slightly run-down, nondescript sign in front, a yellowing potted plant in one of the windows. No mistaking it, this was the place. He steeled himself and stepped through the door with what he hoped looked like confidence.

Inside, a disinterested brunette was sitting behind a desk, flipping through a binder. She looked up when she heard the door and brightened immediately.

“Hi there! Mr Avidan, right? Are you here to talk about Ms Berhow and Mr Hanson?”

Danny scratched his neck.

“Uh, no, I was…I guess I wanted to talk to someone about maybe…going into the same line of work? Maybe?” God, now he was actually doing this he suddenly felt far less sure of himself.

The secretary - he assumed - nodded in understanding.

“Oh, sure! Mr Wecht was in a meeting but--“ she looked at the bird-themed clock on the wall - “he should just be done, I think. I’ll buzz you on through.”

Danny was so disconcerted by the whole thing that the actual name didn’t register until he was through the door by the desk into an organised but clearly well-worn office. Surely he’d misheard. Or it was a coincidence, for all that it wasn’t that common a name. It would be too ridiculous for--

His thoughts were interrupted and promptly proven dead wrong by the man who walked through the door at the other end of the room.

“Oh,” said Brian. “Hi Dan.”

\---

Ten minutes later, when Danny had stopped shouting, Brian looked at him over steepled fingers and asked what exactly he was doing there. Danny hesitated. Brian being involved suddenly made him feel really fucking stupid about the whole thing, as if he weren’t nervous enough already. But he was in too deep to stop now.

“I, uh. I wanna be a magical girl,” he blurted.

Brian shrugged equivocally.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Danny said, stumped. “Just…like that?” Brian nodded.

“Yep. What colour?”

“What?”

“What colour dress do you want,” Brian sighed, pulling a piece of paper out of a drawer.

“Oh,” Danny said. “Um, blue, please?”

“Nice choice. Sign here.” Brian pushed the paper across his desk, pointing to a dotted line at the bottom. Danny scrawled his signature with the proffered pen, giving Brian the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he wasn’t signing away his soul or something. Brian nodded in approval.

“Good, good. In which case…” he cleared his throat and stood up, and his voice took on a sonorous quality that to Danny’s ear came from somewhere else entirely, like an echo from the back of a cave.

“In the name of the moon and the stars, by the power of those that believe, I proclaim you a magical girl. Protect the innocent, defeat the evil, stand against the darkness in the night and face it down. This is your task and your calling, from this day until the end of your days. Do you accept?”

Danny could smell something in the air, like the tension before a storm, thick and almost palpable. But there was no weight to it, no oppressive bulkhead of black cloud - it was lifting him, raising him onto his toes and further, his hair turning into a halo around his head. His heart was beating fast, but not from fear. He looked Brian in the eye.

“I do.”

And then everything was light, and colour, and the sound of a life changing. It sounded like music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now Dan's finally done the thing I've been nudging him to do for seven chapters, you might want to check out the [Grumps made in a Sailor Senshi dollmaker](http://cardboardmoose.tumblr.com/post/86457251509/i-may-have-spent-the-past-half-hour-making-the).


	8. An End, of Sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny could get used to this.

If Danny had felt exhausted by the media circus before he took the vow, there weren’t words for how he felt afterwards. The moment the press had gotten word of a new magical girl - and one so closely linked to the power couple of pastels at that - the horde of reporters had descended upon their door with even more fervour. For the first time in the whole cavalcade Danny was in the glare of the spotlight rather than lurking outside it, and whilst it was plenty nervewracking, it was also weirdly thrilling. If there had ever been any doubts that he was a born performer, they were surely gone now.

His first patrol had gone about as well as expected, which was to say that he’d tripped himself up with the chain of his weapon, landed on his ass, and had to wait for Suzy and Arin to stop crying with laughter and help him up.

The second patrol was better, in that he hadn’t actively fallen over. By the third they deemed him competent enough to be in the presence of others, so a pair of recruits had gotten to watch him twitch and yelp his way through the streets.

On the fourth, he killed his first spectre. It had taken him by surprise, rushing around a corner towards him like a roiling torpedo, but the long hours of practice had worked their way into his muscles and he swung _up_ and _over_ and _through_ and then it was gone, dissipating into the night with a scream just on the edge of hearing. He’d had to lean against a wall for a while, legs trembling, but that was by the way. He’d done it. He’d pulled his weight.

Suzy and Arin had taken him out for waffles to celebrate, and then taken him home for a rather different kind of reward.

It was, on reflection, a good thing he’d quit his day job not long before they’d gone public. What with juggling meetings and projects and patrol on top of Grumps, he’d have no hope of earning an actual living if he needed to.

And the projects only kept getting bigger and more numerous. Not only was the magical girl channel absurdly popular - like, merchandise and conventions and wearing sunglasses outside so people wouldn’t recognise them popular - everyone kept coming up with ideas. And they were great ideas, fun ideas, but good god they were time-consuming.

“One more time?” Arin’s voice came over the headset and Danny snapped out of his reverie to see him looking expectant behind the glass.

“Okay.” He flicked back through the script, found the highlighted line, cleared his throat.

“I’m a _sexy_ little magical girl.”

\---

Why did that have to be the line. Why did that have to be the bit that went viral. Why did that have to be the thing people yelled at him when they saw him grocery shopping. Goddamn Brian. Goddamn Arin. Goddamn Ross, for having the idea about the animated show to begin with.

Except that it had been a great idea, as it turned out. The pilot had been picked up by major networks, and kids across the world were watching _The Adventures of Magica Grumps_ , dressing as them for Halloween, pretending to be them in the playground. Schoolyards everywhere echoed to “Suzy Scissor Slice!” and “Arrow of Mirth!” and even “Sonic Slam!”. Turns out Ross had been right about the naming attacks thing too.

And it wasn’t just kids. Comic Con, Magfest, everything inbetween - conventions were full of cosplayers with blonde streaks and poofy skirts, toting oversized weapons and puffing out their cheeks for photos in an approximation of Grump faces. It was super, super weird, but also strangely flattering. No-one had ever imitated him before. Hell, no-one had ever looked up to him before. At every public appearance someone could come up to him, scuffing their feet and bowing their head, telling him that he was the reason they became a magical girl, or a musician, or a comedian. Some of them wanted hugs, too. That was an extra perk.

All things considered, it was a rare and valuable day when the three of them got to spend much time just existing for their own sake. But those were the best days - no responsibilities, no great missions, just the three of them curled on the couch or the bed, relearning their love for each other all over again.

It was on one of those days, few and far between as they were, that Arin made a suggestion.

“Hey, Dan?” he asked, raising his head from Suzy’s leg and peering around the book in her hands.

“Mm?” Dan murmured, half-asleep. There was a pause.

“You know how you…spend like all your time here?”

“Mm?”

“Like you sleep here pretty much every night and stuff.”

Dan opened his eyes, his attention caught. “Yeah?”

“It just seems kinda silly for you to pay rent on another place when you’re never there, right?” Arin asked, his voice tinged with hesitation. “I mean, like…I dunno, I’m being stupid. Whatever.”

“No, no, no,” Danny said, hurriedly, “It’s not stupid, you’re…like, you’re right, I guess? I hadn’t thought about it, things have been so…” he trailed off, lacking words to describe just how the last few months had been. Like a goddamn train to the face was probably the best phrase, if that train was made of marshmallows and cuddles.

“And now you’re thinking about it?” Suzy piped up, closing her book and placing it carefully to the side.

Danny thought. And then he realised that he didn’t need to think much at all.

“Looks like we need to find Barry another roommate,” he grinned, and was immediately buried under two warm bodies, laughing delightedly.

\---

“Jesus fucking-- keep your end up, will you?”

“I’m trying!” Danny couldn’t see Ross’ face from behind the mattress, but the petulant whine conveyed his expression well enough.

“Well, try harder,” he grunted, feeling his fingers slip another inch.

“You were the one who didn’t want to wait for Arin and Suzy, it’s not my fault your bed is so goddamn big!” Ross groaned, bracing himself against the banister and hoisting the bed further up, which promptly threw Danny off balance.

He knew he was careening backwards, felt the sickening kick of adrenalin in his gut and just had time to think _this is it, this is how I go out, how embarrassing_ before the weight was suddenly lifted and Arin’s warm laugh was in his ear.

“Seriously, you tried to get this up the stairs by yourselves? Dude, that’s kinda impressive,” Arin chuckled, grunting a little as he took the weight of the frame. Suzy’s voice floated up from somewhere further down the stairs.

“And also kinda dumb! Why didn’t you wait for us?”

Danny sighed in relief as the bed made its way up the stairs with considerably more ease thanks to the extra pairs of hands.

“I, uh. I wanted it to be a surprise,” he mumbled. “There was gonna be rose petals and stuff.”

“Oh, Danny,” he could hear the smile in Suzy’s voice, “That’s super sweet. But I think I prefer you with your neck not broken.”

“Point taken,” Danny wheezed, manoeuvring the bed around the bedroom door and finally letting it drop onto the floor. There was a _fwump_ , followed by another, as Arin and Suzy threw themselves onto the mattress, sinking into the softness. Danny grinned and launched himself after them, landing in a pile of comfort and giggling.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll be off, then,” Ross called, backing through the doorway completely unheeded.

Danny felt Suzy and Arin’s arms wrap around his torso and let the tension drain slowly out of his muscles, relaxing into the familiar warmth. Their fingers were laced together on his stomach, heads on his shoulders, legs intertwined with his. He closed his eyes, and realised that they were breathing together, all three of them, chests rising and falling like one living thing, inseparable, unbreakable.

He smiled.

And all was well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did it! We climbed this whole mountain.
> 
> Glister, Glimmer, Glance may be over, but this isn't the end of Magicagrumps. There'll be more - probably with rather different ratings - at a later date. I'm far too attached to these dorks to end things here.
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for sticking with me through this absurd journey.
> 
> Next time on Game Grumps--well. That'd spoil the surprise.


End file.
